Khan Academy

[Aimless]

www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/


Never mind vouchers. This is the future, already here.

[Aimless]

So, do you think the unions will fight this?

[Loki]

Shouldn't the "equality above all" people be incensed that some people who graduate from school will be far more employable than others?

[agamemnus]

Shouldn't the "equality above all" people be incensed that some people who graduate from school will be far more employable than others?

You need to actually get to the part where people are employing based on real skills and knowledge instead of based on how well their resume responds to some dumb keyword-based computer algorithm that HR uses to ferret out thousands of resumes... well, anyway, we need to get GGT's freeeeeee market to get companies to really compete again..

[Ominous Gamer]

www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/
Never mind vouchers. This is the future, already here.

I take issue with this line

Carpenter, who attends Santa Rita Elementary, a public school in Los Altos, California, shouldn’t be doing work anywhere near this advanced.

He should be doing work this advanced, all students should be. Complex mathematical ideas are far easier to teach in lower grades when the idea of math in its entirety is still new. I was doing alegebra in 3rd and 4th grade thanks to my gifted teacher, and I didn't see it again until late 6th and 7th grade.

What the article is describing sounds a lot like how Blackboard operates with colleges. So the idea isn't new, its just that this teacher is using it with a much younger audience. The problem is that this is one teacher out of hundreds, and once these students move beyond her class they are going to end up bored, possibly mislabeled as behind, and end up with larger issues as they struggle to stay captivated and involved as the rest of the school system slowly catches up to what they already know.

Not that this isn't a great idea, I've experienced this first hand and its awesome; not to whitewash possible long term issues of aggressive hand holding. This is the type of stuff home school parents think they are going to do when they first start down that road. But it needs a much wider acceptance from other teachers, grades, and schools; or else it could get crushed as a failure before its given a chance.

This idea, this is what teachers want. Entertaining homework thats easy to follow through with (issues of internet access aside for now), and having students coming to class prepared, and the teacher knowing ahead of time how prepared they are.

[Dreadnaught]

Good read.

I can see some of the criticisms, especially if there is a heavy emphasis on rote memorization. EG can this 10 year old discuss these concepts and apply them to anything?

[CitizenCain]

www.wired.com/magazine/2011/07/ff_khan/


Never mind vouchers. This is the future, already here.

Honestly, this kinda seems like the past. Granted, it's working better than most public schools (and how pathetisad is it that our current model is beat by a bunch of short video clips from some Indian dude), but at its core, this is just a series of non-interactive lectures. OK, it's delivered over a computer, and saves time over listening to a teacher do it, but it's still the same basic "memorize what I say" approach to teaching that doesn't really work too well under the best of circumstances. And giving a kid unsupervised access to a computer is definitely not the best of circumstances. Nor, incidentally, is telling your students to go to school at home, and do more course work after school's out. Come to think of it, this could go very bad, very fast, as soon as someone tries it on the poor kids who don't have a computer at home. Educational segregation based on economic class, and/or government-funded computers for low-income students, all to support the same fundamental teaching model, except at home, after school hours.

This'll go well, I'm sure. My tax dollars at work, telling kids to go learn at home. <sigh>

You need to actually get to the part where people are employing based on real skills and knowledge instead of based on how well their resume responds to some dumb keyword-based computer algorithm that HR uses to ferret out thousands of resumes...

Please. HR doesn't do that - they contract out to recruiting companies to do that for them. HR is about... using Facebook and being the office slut (or least the office tease).

[Wraith]

Honestly, this kinda seems like the past. Granted, it's working better than most public schools (and how pathetisad is it that our current model is beat by a bunch of short video clips from some Indian dude), but at its core, this is just a series of non-interactive lectures. OK, it's delivered over a computer, and saves time over listening to a teacher do it, but it's still the same basic "memorize what I say" approach to teaching that doesn't really work too well under the best of circumstances. And giving a kid unsupervised access to a computer is definitely not the best of circumstances. Nor, incidentally, is telling your students to go to school at home, and do more course work after school's out. Come to think of it, this could go very bad, very fast, as soon as someone tries it on the poor kids who don't have a computer at home. Educational segregation based on economic class, and/or government-funded computers for low-income students, all to support the same fundamental teaching model, except at home, after school hours.

The difference I think is that students get the non-interactive lectures at home, where it's not too different from watching TV, which kids are good at. Then they get the more personalized attention that parents are supposed to provide at school.

This type of thing is actually fairly common at colleges, it's just applying it this early that's newish.